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Every one ought to cherish and encourage in himself the Modesty and Assurance I have here mentioned.

A Man without Assurance is liable to be made uneasy by the Folly or Ill-nature of every one he converses with. A Man without Modesty is lost to all Sense of Honour and Virtue.

It is more than probable, that the Prince above-mentioned possessed both these Qualifications in a very eminent degree. Without Assurance he would never have undertaken to speak before the most august Assembly in the World; without Modesty he would have pleaded the Cause he had taken upon him, tho it had appeared ever so Scandalous.

From what has been said, it is plain, that Modesty and Assurance are both amiable, and may very well meet in the same Person. When they are thus mixed and blended together, they compose what we endeavour to express when we say a modest Assurance; by which we understand the just Mean between Bashfulness and Impudence.

I shall conclude with observing, that as the same Man may be both Modest and Assured, so it is also possible for the same Person to be both Impudent and Bashful.

We have frequent Instances of this odd kind of Mixture in People of depraved Minds and mean Education; who tho’ they are not able to meet a Man’s Eyes, or pronounce a Sentence without Confusion, can Voluntarily commit the greatest Villanies, or most indecent Actions.

Such a Person seems to have made a Resolution to do Ill even in spite of himself, and in defiance of all those Checks and Restraints his Temper and Complection seem to have laid in his way.

Upon the whole, I would endeavour to establish this Maxim, That the Practice of Virtue is the most proper Method to give a Man a becoming Assurance in his Words and Actions. Guilt always seeks to shelter it self in one of the Extreams, and is sometimes attended with both.

X.

[Footnote 1:

[–Strabonem
Appellat paetumm pater; et pullum, male parvus
Si cui filius est; ut abortivus fuit olim
Sisyphus: hunc varum, distortis cruribus; illum
Balbutit scaurum, pravis fullum male talis.

Hor.]]

[Footnote 2: Book III., Chapters 10, 11. Words are the subject of this book; ch. 10 is on the Abuse of Words; ch. 11 of the Remedies of the foregoing imperfections and abuses.]